Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Windowsill Gardening

Look at my latest additions to the windowsill! That is celery on the left and Romaine lettuce in the middle. My sweet potatoes are growing roots but no sprouts yet.

I read about growing Romaine from the stump and I couldn't wait to get home today to try it. I just happened to have celery too. Green onions work but I don't like them so no point in growing those. Now, all I have to do is change the water daily and wait. They are supposed to grow pretty fast.

Right now I am growing: celery, Romaine, sweet potatoes, (and outside) snow peas, salad greens, tomatoes, and (not plants) quail for eggs. It sounds great but the vegetables aren't big enough to eat yet and the tomatoes are all green. The quail have gone on a laying strike and I actually bought chicken eggs at the store because I got used to having eggs and bacon on Saturday mornings. Having quail eggs and bacon is more fun than chicken eggs but I can't do much about that until they decide to lay again.

I have more seeds to plant outside. Corn, squash and beans. I was hoping to buy more garden soil but I am trying not to spend money so maybe I will just make due with what I have this year. I still have my aquaponics set-up to put together. I'm a little worried about it because I read that gnats can become a problem and I hate gnats. I had a gnat problem in my RV once. They were living in the drains. They are quite difficult to get rid of in aquaponics. It might be better to set it up on the patio if I can figure out where to run the extension cord for the pump.

Anyway, the point of all of this is to not have to run to the store every week for produce. I'd still need to buy milk unless I got used to frozen milk. I suppose that would be ok for baking. Powdered milk is out of the question. I had too much of that as a kid. I've never tried shelf-stable milk but that is an option. Then there is soy milk and almond milk. Not quite the same.

Hopefully, my plants will produce edible food soon and my quails will start laying so I can pretend I am a mini-urban farmer or something like that. Oh, and I almost forgot my vanilla extract under the sink. I'm still shaking it every few days. It doesn't look dark enough yet but it's getting there. Maybe I should take a drink and find out how vanilla-y the vodka is.

2 comments:

I was a bit resistant to the idea of frozen milk.But I only drink 1 litre(around a quart) per week.(It only stays fresh around a week)And by far the most common size at the store is 2 litres, which is cheaper and usually fresher.So I tried freezing half the 2 litres for the second week (measured out exactly into 3x2day+1x1day jars.I can't really taste the difference.So I am really happy I tried it.